PRANKS OF LIGHTNING.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 10604, 5 November 1910, Page 3 (Supplement)

PRANKS OF LIGHTNING.

Lightning oilen sluice, buildings without setting them on lire. Sometimes it humorously down the side of the chimney, tosses the kitchen stove about, runs over the floor and whisks out down the water pipes, leaving behind a sulphurous smell and frightened people. . jt has bo-en known to whirl a heavy range around, to melt the silver on tho dining-room table, to kill tho cat and leave the dog behind unharmed, to smash the ciockery, stop the clock; burn t|io cook's hair off and do other gobliiilTke things to frighten folk.

'But there is also some record to show tliat lightning does good occasionally. According to a- yritor in Country in America, "a'ouan suffering with chronic rheumatism, so that he could .just manaae to hobble around was. struck by lightning and immediately cured. Chronic rheumatism seems to get better a'fter being struck by lightning, though it is never" prescribed for such cases. It is even reported that a tumor was removed.by lightning, and not a few cases cf paralysis have been cured by the mysterious powcis of the discharge. : ; - "liightning does other- pranks, with people it takes 4 a sudden fancy to. It has been known.to print the monograii ■from a metal cigar case.or .the' facsimile of coins upon the naked flesh, •but more often it"jus + -leaves unsightly burns. Some people killed by lightning are horribly burned, and others are left dead without a single mark upon them:, It. is- not. unusual \for lightnme to flash-down and give a man a haircut: and a .shave. - Sometimes it just burris the moustache. . "It is recorded, and seems to be well authenticatedj that lightning has been known to kill men and animals, leaving them standing or lying in perfectly nativral positions, but when they were, touched they 1 crumbled into dust; but I would have to sec the ashes to believe it. As lightning varies all the way from a gentle leakage of tho energy from the clouds to-the earth to a gigantic flash of thousands and thousands of horse-power, it- is quite imnossiblc to determine whether _this could happen or not. Certain it is that ."•■ lip-avv bolt would kill so quickly that the body could not move unless it was tossed by the discharge itself. "A great many cattle are killed each vear br lightning. This is because they invariably seek "shelter under trees or near fences durins: a severe storm As many as 2000 head of cattle have been known to be killed by a single flash of lightning. Experiment has also ihowii that it takes less current to kill an ox than it lees 'to kill a strong man.

"Sometimes lightning will strike''a ham and kill every other cow standing in the stable;-: again it will strike a bunch of Western horses and kill all those standing on the outside, leaving those, in- the centre without injury. Lightning has been known to travel a long way along a wire fence, and kill cattle, ■-■■... "During the hot summer months, when thunderstorms are of frequent occurrence, the daily papers are full of stories about lightning freaks. I .find one where the lightning struck a small shed in which "seven workmen were sleeping on the floor, killing every other man. This was explained by the fact that it killed the tallest men because their feet came nearest to an iron pipe under the floor near the opposite wall. In another State' lightning is said to have fused a watehchain in a man's vest without.doing him any serious injury. . "Perhaps the most common item of all is the story of lightning'stripping oft" a person and leaving the victim otherwise unharmed. I have noticed a number of trees which were struck ,by lightning and stripped of their bark. This, -in the caso of the trees, is explained bv the fact that the lightning followed 'down the tree between the wood and the bark, where the sap is more plentiful and the travelling easier. The steam from the boiling sap blows the bark entirely away. It is hardly logical, though quite possible, to attribute this reason to cases where the Iranian.body has been thus rudely stripped of its artificial covering. " "If there is anything more uncertain and freakish than the weather it is lightning. The expression that 'lightning never strikes- twice in the same place ' is far from being true, and yet it demonstrates the uncertainty and vacillating character of the phenomena. A house in England has already been struck more than three, hundred times. Thev say that lightning will not strike a' beech tree, but I have seen a beech tree torn to splinters by lightning. It does the unexpected thing' always. "Not so very many years ago the country was lightning rod crazy. Nearly every building ■ was equipped with lightning rods as suggested by the late Benjamin Franklin. Lightning rods stuck up from gable roofs, towers and" chimneys. There is no question that lightning rods are a good thing if ligh tiling does happen to strike a building, but"lightning is so very unlikely to strike buildings and lightning rods are such feeble protection in case it does that tbe large insurance companies do not lower their rates on barns or other buildings equipped with lightning rods. "The only way to protect a building securely from any lightning discharge would be to enclose it in a metal cage well grounded, through which ligntning,""which always stays on the surface, cannot penetrate. The new concrete' building re-inforced with a network of steel rods offer the very best orotection against lightning. *" "A large number of people run and liut down all the windows and close the doors as soon as a thunderstorm approaches. My landlady does this; she is more afraid of lightning than or n and all his imps. ' Why do you close the doors and windows.'' I asked oiio' dav. ' Leave them open and . we csn watch the storm. There is nothiii"- more beautiful than a thunderstorm"''in all its magnitude and "•randcur. There is less danger m watching a thunderstorm-than- in -list--eiiing to the sheet-iron thunder at the theatre.'" , ' '■ . ....,. • "" 'Leave the .windows open, indeed! -,!>" answered horrified; 'Do you suppose' I would have a draught in tins house, during a thunderstorm ? VY e d bo certain to be strucic! -_.... ' "No argument that I could-give, ■convinced'her differently,- and I gave it'up io : despair. • Yet this ' no draught argument is one of the: most common superstitions in. the woild. - A great many people actually believe that liglitr,in"- eaft be blown into .a"house-.with a strongs draught. With the .terrific speed"' of . lightning—-186,000 miles a second—there is-no danger of its being blown' aside- from its course, only that, the wind" 'might, and probably does change the direction bf the air currentsbut i,OL to such a device as greats ici ili'U the dnccticm ol tho di-chiige and ca i\ it mte a bm'ding "Thoie is no rccoul tliau 1 know of where a discharge of lightning fioie che struck the side of the house and came into an open window or an open dooi Houses aic stiuck, but tho-\ aie always struck on the loot first and loaih alva-\s on the \crj highest point of the loof at that, unless the current leaps oft' a telephone or electric light wire. This is because, with the enormous voltage or pressure of lightning, dry wood is almost as good a"con"diictor as copper wire is to a-weaker current, and lightning, travelling always in the easiest paths, quickly leaves the air, which is a non-conductor, to run down the wooden timbers'of a building. "■'But even the electrical engineer must admit, that the lightning-scared person who seeks the comforting folds of the family featherbed whenever-the lightning flashes shows good judgment. Drv feathers are excellent insulating 'material, and while they-would not stop a bolt of lightning if it actually hit the perscn, vet they would prevent a dangerous discharge from passing-through the body in case- another portion of the house was. struck. -"Still other persons think they are safer in a dark room. Perhaps they feel better where they cannot see the flashes and where thcthunder cannot be heaTd so distinctly, but they_are tio safer. Lightning is not nfraid of the dark and it will travel through the darkest room just as quickly as through the lightest. "In spite of the almost universal fear of lightning, characteristic of buds, fishes and animals as well as of human beings, it is not half as dangerous as going out of the house on an ic\ morning, walking down the cellar

stairs or a hundred other things we do every day without a thought of pergonal harm. More peoplo are killed each, year by falling building material, ,ii.ore die from fright, than are. killed by lightning. '- "The Census IJurcau shows only 109 pccple killed by lightning in this entire ■country during the year 1906, and only fcliirty of these people were killed in the cities. Heat and the sun killed 763 -during the same ypar, 203 died from cold and freezing and 4395 were drowned. "Just as the moisture in the air condenses into raindrops and showers the earth, even so the particles of electricity condense and unite until tho air, or, better speaking, the water in tho air, becomes overcharged, and we have ■x shower of electricity. Tho particles .of moisture accumulating in tho upper air are free, to drop to earth as soon as they condense and unite until thoy are too heavy to float. The particles of electricity gathered m tno «PP cr air, which is moist enough to be a good conductor, are effectively insulated from the ground by layers of more or less dry air which is tho best non-con-ductor'of electricity in the world. "This electricity is 'dammed back' until it leaches'a pressure sufficient to ! bre=TS down this resistance and dash to earth a single gigantic' spark or flash. Jt is the gaesous -particles composing the atmosphere, heated to incandescence by the electrical energy breaking down this resistance, which wo see and not the electricity itself. Electricity cannot be seen.

"Lightning travelling from ono cloud to another or from a cloud to tho. earth has no special direction any more than that it takes the easiest.path. As the atmosphere, especially in a storm, is full of whirls, eddies and waves like water, but unlike water being of different degrees of dryness and conductivity, the lightning travels in a rather zigzag path. "A glance at any thunder cloud will show that the distribution of moisture is very uneven, parts of the cloud being gray and iiarts black. Pressure differences in the cloud gradually rise until somewhere the disruptive strength of the. air is reached and a discharge, passes equalising the voltage at that point. "This causes an increased load in another part of the same .cloud, so that the flashes continue till the pressure differences arc levelled down. It acts very, much like snow sliding on a roof—a little snow slides from one high point to another, and that in turn become-; too heavy and slides, and so on until the snow'all slides off on to the ground.

"Lightning flashes nearly always c.cci.il- within clouds, ami very rarely from cloud to cloud, and still more rarely from a cloud to the ground. It is verv probable that discharges from a cloud to the earth take place only when a cloud heavy with moisture is carried bv a current' of air part way down to the ground, evidenced by the fact that lightning discharges to the ground are nearly always followed by a heavy downpour of rain. ".Thunderstorms depend upon the rapid condensation of water vapor in the air. After a, spell of intensely hot weather the air has picked up a groat quantity of water vapor and electricity. A sudden Current of cold air condenses this vapor into clouds and from clouds into rain drops. This rapid, condensation causes severe lightning and consequently terrific thunder. . "The- nearer we get to the heat or the tropics the livelier the thunderstorms. They have severe thunderstorms in New England, but _ those storms wouldn't be considered indicative of a change of the weather m tho south-west. There they have the very essence of thunder and lightning. In. Colorado, where the water power is. extensively developed, the electric transmission lines are frequently struck a dozen times in a single storm. ' "The lightning surging over tnese transmission, telegraph and telephone lines would destroy the electrical equipment if it were not for little devices very appropriately called 'lightning arresters,' which perform the very ser-vice-their name implies. These little 'arresters' also prevent the lightning from visiting the houses over the telephone wires. ' "Thunderstorms would not be so terrifying if it weren't for the mighty peals and crashes of thunder. it is very easy to escape from the brilliant glare of 'ine flashing lightning by seeking a darkened room' or by tying a black silk handkerchief over the eyes, but it is almost impossible to get away from the heavy thunder which at tnr.ES seems to rock the' very earth. "All sound is but the vibration of the air. Thunder is the vibration oi the air on a large scale, and, iv; everyone must know, thunder is the product of lightning. It has been shown that lightning, in leaping from one point to another, must first break down or destroy the non-conducting air. "In other words, lightning tears and burns a hole through the air in its passage, leaving a vacuum behind it. This "hole may be miles long. The natural pressure of the atmosphere, is fifteen pounds to the square inch. bnnposing that lightning tore a hole in the air. six inches in diameter, tne pressure' on a square foot of oi;.:; vacuum would be nearly 5000 puis.';.;:.;, or more than 10,000 tons a mile. it is this mighty pressure and, consequent rush of air to fill and equalise the vacuum caused by tho lighting destroying tho air as it travels which produce the heavy vibrations known to our ears as thunder."